During recess, there was strict order in the class. Every day, someone from the upper class was in charge of keeping order. Upon arrival of the teacher, he would report that everything was orderly, or he would tell the teacher who had not behaved, and the student would be punished as noted earlier. Outside, one could run and jump – nobody cared – but not in the class. I am convinced that if any teacher were asked today if such teaching methods could bear positive results, they would surely all say that this is impossible. But I must say – we learned a lot. Attending other schools later, I was not behind in my knowledge. I did not feel poorly educated. For instance, I often noticed that adults, and later, students, did not understand important events in Russian history. My village teacher demanded that we should know the history of our emperors in Russia. I remembered them all my life. Grammatical rules, too, were expected to be known.

Until the Revolution, I was well-acquainted with the Bible. For instance, the teacher took the Bible and read a passage and then asked what text he had read, and who had written it. For the most part, we learned to know the Scripture quite well. A problem we had was that we had to know two languages, German and Russian. At home we spoke Low-German; at school, we first learned German using the Gothic script. In the third year we learned Russian, and some of the subjects were taught in that language. In spite of everything, we were quite successful. I often think that our first teacher was a hero. I am sure that if I would ask any teacher today to take over a school like ours, he would refuse.

Learning at school came easy for me. Before I started school, I had learned to read and write from my brothers, so I had very little to learn in my first grade. I quickly did my lesson and then I listened to what was taught in the second grade. It often happened that the teacher would ask something that nobody knew, so I would raise my hand and give the right answer. As a result, the teacher moved me from the first class to the third class. How proud I was to join my cousin, Helena Driedger’s class. The learning in the public school was easy. In my first six years of school I never received a punishment, even though I was with the trouble-makers during recess. The ministers often criticized my family when the teacher reported, but I was never disciplined harshly.

The teacher gave me early access to the school library, but there was not much to read – parts from Gogol, fables from Krylov, and poems from Nekrassov. Besides the school library, there existed another private library at the Priess home. But there we had to pay, and I had no money. At Christmas, my father gave me a book (I forget the title). I read it at once and then there was nothing more to read. I then arranged with Priess that I would give him my book in exchange for giving me access to his library. I remember one book, Thousand and One Nights, which made a great impression on me. I often dreamt of what I had read. At times the bandits were chasing me and when they had approached me and tried to grab me, I would awake from the fear. Despite the horror, I enjoyed those dreams. I soon found out that eating a heavy meal at supper would cause me to dream. But often I would eat more than I needed to stop my hunger. My last year in public school was the start of World War I.

     Tina, who was Jacob’s junior by at least 15 years, recalls, “I must have been 8 years old when I started. I finished grade two. There was strict discipline. If we were punished in school by standing in the corner or a strapping, we would also be punished at home. The lower grades did not have scribblers, but a slate and a slate pencil. This could be erased with a cloth and the slate could be used again. At recess time the children would play games like “Drop the Handkerchief”, “Hopscotch”, or “Klepky” (a game with a stick). In the winter they were mostly inside or maybe skating on the ice. They used their wooden slippers (“Schloren”) as skates.

     At Christmas time they would have a program with plays or recitations and songs. They had a live tree and real wax candles and some shiny balls or paper chains, which the students had made. “I remember one Christmas singing “O Tannenbaum” (O Christmas Tree) and receiving a few candies wrapped in paper, nuts, and a post card with Lenin’s picture,” writes Tina. “We were not spoiled by the receiving of many gifts. There were no Christmas trees in the homes, so we children enjoyed the tree in the school.” There were no spruce or fir tree forests in the Pretoria area so to get one for the school, one had to travel to Orenburg, about 70 km. away. The school had only male teachers; it appears that women were not wanted as teachers.

     In the spring of 1915, after finishing public school, Jacob was confronted with the question of  what next? A “Central School” had been established a few years earlier. It was similar to the second level in the Soviet school and had been called “Central” because it was in the centre of the Mennonite settlement, Pretoria.

“Men from our village had organized this school. It was a wooden, two-storey building. It had four classrooms and one bigger parlour for meetings. The other rooms were for the teacher and his family. The upkeep and salary was paid for by the Mennonites of Pretoria. This was the centre of Mennonite culture in this area. Students from the surrounding districts would attend this school by boarding in Pretoria, or in the next village, Karaguj. But I always hoped that when I finished public school, I would attend the Central School, which was only for boys from German villages. There was an unwritten rule that public education was sufficient for girls. During my years at the Central School we had only one Russian girl.

After finishing public school, I hoped to continue my education in the Central School, but the war years destroyed my hope. The reason was as follows: In the beginning of the conflict in Poland and the Baltics, St. Petersburg had many German citizens. They all had to be evacuated away from the war zone. Many came to the Orenburg area. In the beginning they were placed in the Ukrainian and Russian villages, but those evacuees soon obtained permission to settle in German villages. During 1915, Pretoria had many newcomers in their midst. Whoever had room took them in. They paid well for their rooms. Besides, the farmers also benefitted selling produce to the newcomers. On the decision of the Municipality, the Central School was closed to make room for the internees. We were not able to take anybody into our home since we lived in two rooms with one kitchen, but we had a shed outside, and one German offered he would rebuild it for living quarters. He managed to make two rooms which were occupied by two families. 

When the school closed in 1915, I was devastated because I had had high hopes of completing my education at the Central School and then proceeding to higher education somewhere. I complained to my father about the threat of not being able to continue my education, and although he had shown little empathy for my aspirations in the past, he now intervened in an attempt to find a way. He asked David Kozlovsky, who lived across the street, to provide me with some individual tutoring. He was not concerned about the content of his instruction, as long as I was kept satisfied.

I forgot the program, but I remember the main subject was Geography, which I enjoyed. I learned about new countries that I had not known before – about people, animals, etc. I drew maps, which I was soon able to draw with accuracy, referencing longitude and latitude. The knowledge I obtained assisted in my future studies. I could draw the main rivers and mountains of far away countries from memory. The instruction I received was successful, but I remember nothing of the other subjects.